Tuesday, April 26, 2011

So, I told my boss today that I made sweet potato gnocchi last night. His response? "What's gnocchi?" REALLY? I didn't know that people didn't know what this was!

Well, in case anyone doesn't, this is what it is: Small dumplings made from potato, semolina, or flour, usually served with a sauce. It is usually an Italian dish and many Italian restaurants have at least one gnocchi dish on it. (I hope I didn't get this information wrong and offend anyone!!)

And it's delicious!!

So, we had a few sweet potatoes lying around the kitchen that I didn't know what to do with. My husband is getting sick of the one way I like them - in the balsamic vinegar glaze. So I went to the Net. I was planning on searching for a fry recipe or something, but then stumbled upon the gnocchi recipe. With just a few ingredients and steps, I decided I HAD to try it.

It started out easy enough - but let me tell you - this is a messy, messy project, unless I did it wrong. I had flour and sweet potato all over my hands and kitchen counters. I probably made some gnocchi's too fat or too thin, but in the end, it came out tasting fantastic and both my husband and I really enjoyed it for tonight's dinner.

He melted some margarine to put on his - it was good, and I could also see putting a little Parmesan cheese on that as well. I used Ragu's Light Parmesan Alfredo Sauce and it was really good.

I highly recommend making this. It's easy, but not something to make quickly after work. One reason is because you need to bake the sweet potatoes in the oven for at least 40 minutes. Rolling and cutting the dough took some time for me as well, but I might have just been having stupid difficulties. It cooks up very fast in boiling water though!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

My recipe today was inspired by a recipe I found on AllRecipes.com for "English Pasties." What are "pasties" you ask? Well, this is what the recipe description said:

"Pasties - which are meat-filled turnovers - came from England along with the Cornish who settled in America. Years ago, miners and woodsmen throughout the Midwest relished having these pasties in their lunch boxes."

Hmmm...

Well, I had originally been looking for recipes that included both steak and potatoes. I had opened a can of canned potatoes to use in another recipe, and I had a bunch leftover. I hate wasting food, so I needed to use them before they went bad. That is when I stumbled upon this recipe here.

It seemed interesting so I decided to make something loosely based off it. I used our last can of crescent rolls we had lying around the house instead of making my own dough, and added some cut up bell peppers to the mix. The result was sort of a homemade Hot Pocket, but it tasted really good and was definitely a nice and filling dinner.

My creation was very easy to make and didn't take all that long either. It also held together well overnight so we could eat it the next night. To reheat, I popped it back in the oven for a bit instead of nuking it in the microwave and it was just fine.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Sometimes I get this e-mail from cooking.com with different recipes due to whatever ingredient they pick for the day. One day it was chicken, and one of the recipes was a chicken with a sweet potato sauce. It sounded really interesting, and despite me really only finding one way to enjoy sweet potatoes, I figured I'd give it a go.

Well, let me tell you - the sauce was soooooooooooo delicious!! I think I made mine a little too thick, but instead of correcting it per recipe instructions, I kept it that way. It was sort of like a creamy mashed cauliflower consistency and it tasted really good. Plus it was filling!

I definitely would make the sweet potato part on its own for a side dish. That was the part that really made the meal...the rest was seriously just a piece of grilled chicken - nothing special.

So, here is the recipe... I actually made it a while ago, but haven't posted in a bit because I was 1) lazy (sorry, Melissa), and 2) I didn't cook over Passover at all so I had nothing else to post. I should be starting too cook again this week.

I didn't change the recipe much...instead of apple cider, I used apple juice. And instead of mace, I used nutmeg, which is pretty much the same thing and totally interchangeable (I looked it up online!). I also omitted the celery (I hate it) and used dried parsley instead of fresh, so you always use like, 1/3 of the fresh ingredient if using dry.

It did take me a while to make this, so it's not a quick after work meal.

Add the celery and onion and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring, until softened.

Add the cinnamon and mace and stir to distribute. Stir in the honey and sweet potato. Add the cider and chicken stock. Bring to boil over high heat, then lower to medium heat and cook for 30 minutes.

Puree the mixture in a food processor. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thin, place in a saucepan and cook it down over medium heat until the sauce is the desired consistency. If the sauce is too thick, add more chicken stock and heat through. Set the sauce aside.

Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper. When the grill of frying pan is very hot, grill the chicken breasts for 3 minutes on each side. Then, remove them to a baking pan and place them in an oven for 10 minutes, or until they're finally cooked. (If the breasts are thin enough, they can be cooked entirely on the grill, about 5 minutes on each side. A charcoal grill or regular cast-iron skillet may also be used.)

To Serve, pour some sauce on each of 4 plates and sprinkle with pecans, parsley, and red bell pepper. Place the cooked chicken over the sauce.

Monday, April 18, 2011

I just wanted to give a quick run-down of the Passover products my husband and I have tried out and what we like and don't like. I have to say, Passover food has come a long way. There are many more options than there used to be, so it would make one think they can survive the week without their favorite leavened foods or non Kosher for Passover products. Well...maybe. But, there are some good things, and some awful things, as with anything.

My husband and I always raid the Passover aisles of the supermarkets around us as soon as Passover ends because everything goes on clearance and we tuck it away for the following year. It makes it cheaper (the food is expensive!) and if you still have a valid coupon, that's even more of a bonus.

One of our favorite things comes from Manischewitz - their Coffee Cake mix! This is actually really good. It tastes like, gasp, a real coffee cake that is made with real flour and stuff. This is the second year we have it in the house and it definitely provides a much needed snack that doesn't taste like cardboard. We also have a box of the marble cake that we haven't baked yet - hopefully it tastes as good!! I would totally also eat this for breakfast. It costs about $4.99, but again, we buy it on clearance and save it for the next year, so we usually get at least 50-75% off it.

Next up, Gefen's Kosher for Passover Ziti. Last year when I saw this box left in the Passover aisle, I jumped on it. Could it be? PASTA for PASSOVER?? I was so excited. We took it home and put it away in our little Passover products area and pulled it out this year. There is a recipe on the box for a pasta bake, which looked decent enough, but last night we just simply made plain pasta. With 2 (early) Seders already under our belt and another coming up later today, we simply were just too tired after work to do much more than make something simple. (yes, we started Passover 2 days early... fun times).

The pasta wasn't terrible. It's chewier than regular pasta and it doesn't have much of any kind of taste. My husband dressed his with tomato sauce, red pepper flakes, parsley and a little Parmesan cheese. I used some melted margarine, red pepper flakes, parsley and Parmesan. All in all, not too bad. I'd buy this product again and maybe do something fancier with it in the future.

The last product I am going to talk about is Savion's Crispy-O's, regular flavor. TALK ABOUT ICK. The regular flavor, at least, is sort of a weird matzo taste that turns to mush in milk. It was very off-putting. I suffered through a bowl. My pet gerbils, however, really enjoyed their Passover meal of Crispy-O's. My husband will finish the box, but I'd rather have matzo with jelly or something for breakfast. Or an egg. Or anything else. These were NASTY (in my opinion). I think they make some other flavors, but this is the only one we saw on sale this year that we bought on a whim to try. Never again.

I'm curious to see what little finds we pick up at the end of this Passover. Hopefully something decent!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

I really, really, really hate Passover brownies and cookies. I can't seem to find a decent recipe where it actually tastes like a brownie or a cookie. But this following recipe actually comes close to some of the best Passover brownies I have ever tasted, and not just because I made them!

I found this recipe on AllRecipes.com in their Passover section. This woman named Dara posted it and it actually has been rated by other readers very highly. It got 5 out of 5 stars...so I had to try it. I needed something to bring to my friend's house for her Passover Seder that was taking place Sunday night (yes, a day early, but she wanted to make sure people could come since most of us are always with family on the actual start of Passover...for example, my husband and I could never go the past 3 years she invited us!).

I kept the recipe pretty true to form, except I mixed white chips and semi-sweet chips instead of using all semi-sweet chips in the recipe. I also chopped the strawberries into smaller pieces even though the recipe did not say to. The result came out pretty moist (probably due to the strawberries) and decent for a Passover brownie. I recommend it!

They were very easy to make - once I had my ingredients measured out, it took me about 10 minutes to mix them all together and get it into the oven. It did take about 40 minutes of baking in the oven.

I know I haven't posted in a few days, and I got yelled at by my cousin-in-law last night for not keeping her "favorites" list up to date on her Internet. Apparently I am one of her top links and whenever I don't update for a few days, the link disappears from her list. So, to appease her (hi Melissa!), I am posting today!

I actually have a few things to post, but work was insane last week and I wasn't as good about getting my recipes up in a timely fashion (apparently to the dismay of a bored college student). I'll try to be better :-)

So, this recipe actually follows one from Pepperidge Farm, their Apricot Pinwheels. When we had our friends over the other week for Italian Night, they were going to bring brownies but we wanted to have a little something sweet here too. We had exactly one puff pastry sheet left in the freezer, so it was time to use it!

My husband picked the apricot pinwheel recipe, but he made his little treats more like pockets of fruit. He made a few apricot ones, but also blueberry and a mocha chocolate sauce (those were delicious!)

He was disappointed that they weren't as neat and pretty as the real recipe, but they baked up and tasted just fine.

They are very easy to make for a last minute dessert, and are also good sweet treats for a game day!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

So, continuing in what I made for Italian night with our friends and their 2 and a half year old, in addition to my pasta bake (and I also made my eggplant patties!), I made little stuffed pizzas.

Granted, they weren't the prettiest things on the table. I was trying to use crescent roll dough because we had a few tubes frozen in the house, and no pizza dough, but they weren't cooperating very nicely. Oh well - they still tasted fine. In fact, these little stuffed pizzas are perfect for game day appetizers too! I don't think they came out quite how I pictured... I am not sure what I was thinking. But, it worked, and it was easy!

I knew the little girl wouldn't eat my stuffed pizzas because 1) they probably looked really strange to her, 2) many kids are just picky to begin with, 3) there was some spinach in them which, many kids might not enjoy. So, I used something else we had in the house... our new Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Sandwich Bread!! (Comes in white or wheat).

The goldfish sandwich bread is basically like their deli flats, just in the popular shape of their goldfish crackers. I saw a coupon and ad for them last weekend and a store by us had the entire Pepperidge Farm line on sale so I sent my husband to get me a pack - he managed to grab the very last pack!! It was white bread, which is fine, I like that, but wished they still had some wheat left since I am trying to eat healthier these days.

Anyway, so I took half of the sandwich bread and I put a very light layer of sauce on it, and then some shredded mozzarella cheese. I used a pea for an eye and a green bean for the mouth (which I knew she would pick off, I just hoped she would still eat it since a vegetable touched it!). I baked it for about 10 minutes in the oven. When our friends arrived I showed the mom and she thought it was so cute, and she was so touched that I thought to make something special for her child. She said that many times people don't think about the kids and our friends got used to toting her food around - but they didn't need it at our house! Bunny pasta and fishy pizza did the trick.

The little girl DID pick off the veggies..."I'm taking the eye and mouth off..." but she ate the pizza - almost every bite! I was psyched. I don't have kids, but many of our friends do, and my husband's youngest nephew is quite the challenge during feeding time...I guess he'd rather play than eat. So to watch her eat my creation made me feel good. And my friend said to me, "your kids will eat when you have kids - you are so creative!" Well, I hope that is the case - I don't feel like fighting when them to get some nourishment!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

We had some friends come over last Friday night for dinner, and they observe Lent, so no meat!! At first when she told me, I was like, oh no... what will I make? My go-to is usually some sort of chicken. But then I was like, oh, wait... Italian food! My friend confirmed that they do eat pizza and pasta as long as there is no meat in it, so I was set and ready to build a menu around Italian food. Or rather, my Americanized version of Italian food. I am not Italian, and my Italian friends would probably gag at the thought of store bought sauce and packaged pasta. But I love it!

I was also really excited to finally try out the bunny shaped pasta my dad got for me. I love bunnies - and collect figures of them, so they are all over my house, much to my husband's dismay. So when someone in my dad's office had a kid selling all kinds of specialty foods, he figured I'd love the tri-colored bunny pasta - and I did. I decided these people coming over would be the perfect excuse to use it, since they were coming over with a 2 and a half year old.

I wanted to do some sort of bake. I had a can of Hunt's Petite Diced Tomatoes in the house - part of my collection of "why do I have this food, I don't want to waste it so I need to find something to use it in." So I knew the tomatoes had to be used. We also had a bunch of different cheese - from ricotta to Parmesan. So an idea formed in my mind.

This recipe is my own, but it is so basic that I bet a million people have made something like this already! But I really enjoyed it, and my guests said it was good (so hopefully they meant it!)

The only thing I would change is maybe adding some more spices or crushed red pepper flakes. My husband and I like spice, but I think my friends are more basic eaters, so I kept it relatively tame - just a little Italian seasoning.

My husband also felt it needed more regular sauce, but he LOVES sauce and too much hurts my stomach. So feel free to ladle extra globs of sauce throughout the dish too!

So, first I cooked the pasta per instructions on the package, drained it and set it aside.

Then, I poured some sauce in a pot and simmered it with the ricotta cheese, tomatoes and peas, until it was well mixed together.

I then too my casserole pan (about 9 x 13) and did a light greasing of vegetable shortening around the bottom and sides to keep anything from sticking. Then I poured a small layer of my sauce/tomato/cheese mixture on the bottom.

A layer of pasta followed, then by another layer of my sauce mixture. I did this another time as well.On my top layer of the pasta, I scattered the Parmesan cheese, then one last layer of my sauce mixture, and then a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese. I sprinkled some Italian Seasoning over the very top.

I popped my mixture into a 375 degree F pre-heated oven and baked it for about 35 minutes.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Amazingly (or not), this is the first recipe I am posting that actually contains peanut butter. Most people I know LOVE peanut butter. My husband LOVES peanut butter. Me, I hate the stuff. Seriously - I know. It's sacrilegious. But I could never get into the stuff. I actually have gotten into almond butter in the past two years - but just can't eat peanut butter.

This pie, however, is one my husband made for our May 2010 BBQ and my mother-in-law actually made something similar for Father's Day last year. In both situations, it went over well for people who like that stuff. In fact - it was eaten so fast at our BBQ that my husband barely got any!!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

I made the following recipe for Passover 2010 - this is actually my final Passover post for the moment...all the recipes I made last year have now been posted. If I make any before Passover starts for this year, I'll post them up quickly! Otherwise, they will be posted, but hopefully you will all come back looking for them next year!

Last March I was doing a LOT of Internet searching for different passover recipes. This one caught my eye. The original source for it is a booklet for Pesach from the Bar Ilan school in Rio de Janiero.

The recipe was decent...definitely nothing super special, and not the best thing I made. My husband enjoyed it more than I did. Maybe it will strike your interest!!

Hello again, fellow food lovers - sorry for a delay in posting some recipes. It was a busy week. I do have a lot to post, so hopefully I can get back on a regular schedule again.

The following recipe is one I debuted at our backyard BBQ in May of 2010 - also before I started my blog. I think I ended up making these because I had been searching for recipes containing cream cheese. Somehow, my husband and I had ended up with a large amount of cream cheese blocks and we just needed to use them. Therefore, several of the items we prepared for that BBQ contained cream cheese!

I saw a recipe that was close to the one I am posting now and knew it was easy and quick enough to throw together in the eleventh hour. It ended up being a tasty treat, especially for those loving spice, and even my husband liked them, despite him not liking black olives. He said they were chopped just enough that you couldn't really identify the taste as olives. (Personally, I think he has it in his head that he doesn't like some foods, really, and then is surprised when he does!)

So if you and your friends and family love a little spice or heat, try these out at your next party. Or make them, pack them in an ice filled cooler and bring them tailgating!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

So, today's recipe comes to you from the place where I am employed. Every quarter, we get a company wide newsletter. It talks about what goes on in our two facilities in New York and North Carolina, has some random tidbits of information, news about employees, etc. Recently I noticed they have been including a recipe as well.

I am not sure who comes up with the recipes, or where they get them, but the one in April's newsletter seemed interesting.

It was for a chicken, sweet potato and apple skillet. I knew I would have to change it up a little because the original recipe (see picture below) called for bacon and brussels sprouts, two foods I do not eat. I figured I could substitute broccoli for brussels sprouts and just leave out the bacon entirely.

I also knew I would substitute green apples for the golden delicious because I only like green apples.

So, over the weekend I purchased the ingredients I didn't already have in the house and set about making this dish. In my opinion, unless you are a wiz at chopping and dicing, leave a good hour and a half for this recipe. I wouldn't make it after coming home from work! It was easy enough once everything was peeled, chopped and diced though.

I decided to make some whole wheat couscous to serve with the meal. In the end, it came out okay...I don't know if I let something cook a little too long or if it needed the bacon for the extra flavor...but to my husband and I, we really felt like it needed some sort of sauce. I know, I know. This was a recipe for heart health (or so said the recipe in the newsletter). But, it needed a little something extra. I'd really have to sit down and think about what I could put on top of it if I ever make it again.

So, here is the recipe that I used (the modified one) - enjoy! And if you make it, tell me your thoughts on what I can add to it!!

Monday, April 4, 2011

I don't know if any of you watch Chopped on the Food Network, but we love that show over here. For those who don't know about it, the basic idea is there are 4 contestants to start. They each get a basic full of the same mystery ingredients and they need to cook an appetizer using all of the ingredients in the basket, plus anything else they want from the pantry area. The worst dish in the appetizer round gets chopped, and then the 3 remaining contestants get a new basket for the entree round. It then goes to 2 contestants for dessert and then one of them wins $10,000.

Well, it is always interesting to see the ridiculous items in each basket and what people do with them. I have actually learned about a lot of foods and techniques through this show.

But anyway, I sort of have to challenge myself now to use things that are in my pantry before they go bad. My husband and I have slowly been cleaning out every crevice of our house - kitchen cabinets included. I came across a few food items that I didn't even know we had, and I don't want to let them go to waste. Instead of combining all 4 into a dish (that probably would have been nasty), I took one item and just searched online for recipes using it. This ingredient was Mandarin Oranges in a can. Yeah, I know they are yummy on their own, but I wanted to use them.

I found THIS recipe on AllRecipes.com and thought it sounded good. I had to change it slightly though because 1) we had no broccoli in the house, 2) my husband isn't a huge mushroom fan, 3) we didn't have orange juice concentrate and 4) I later realized I didn't have chicken bouillon.

HAHA! At first I was like, um, why am I making this. Then, I figured out some substitutions, so I now present to you, Mandarin Chicken Skillet the A way.